8.0.2.4.6 Incomprehensible

Version 1.2 December 2016                          (Previous Version)

Some people believe that god or religion or value is ultimately unknowable.  They won't accept any rational religion on principle, believing that god and religion must be incomprehensible.  Some believe that even the basic stuff of the universe is unknowable – the void.

We need to explain:

a.      Historically whenever religion was clearly defined it appeared to be dogmatic – to lay down the law, telling us what is real and what to do.  Then it would conflict with science, or philosophers would criticise it.  The existence of God could then be called into doubt. 

b.     To avoid these criticisms, religious supporters said God is more sophisticated: God is not like that.  In the extreme, God is not like anything we know.  God became somehow ‘bigger’ or ‘beyond’ anything we can possibly know, and we don’t even know how God is bigger.

c.      But that means we don't know enough about God to know what he wants us to do.  We can’t comprehend our lives based on the incomprehensible.  It is silly to base our whole lives on something the experts say we know little about.

d.     Mystery is great, it is everywhere.  But mystery doesn’t help with practical decisions about our most fundamental beliefs to guide our behaviour, right here and now.

e.      If God is incomprehensible, or mysterious, then it is even more essential that we work out for ourselves what to believe, what we can comprehend, and how we should behave.

It is a revelation to many people that the mysterious, unknowable and incomprehensible cannot help us discover what to believe or how to behave, and that even knowing this, we can be entirely reasonable and still appreciate mystery.